Cooper By The Gross (All 144 Cooper Stories In One Volume)

by Bill Bernico

  “That’s the little shit,” Chuck said. “Now how do we find him before the cops do?”

  “Why is that important?” I said. “When they catch him, he’ll be booked as an accomplice to attempted murder and they’ll put him away for a long time.”

  “Maybe,” Chuck said, “but not before he tells them what he knows about the twelve grand he and Shuffler took from me. They’ll be coming after me if that happens.”

  “You do make a good point there,” I said. “I guess we’d better get moving on this thing and find him. Is there anything else you want to see here or can we get out of this roach trap? I’m starting to get itchy.”

  Chuck shook his head. “No, I guess we can go,” he said. “But where?”

  “Suppose we start by checking with Winston’s closest relatives?” I said. “He needs someplace to go.”

  “And who would that be?” Chuck said.

  I looked at the information sheet I’d gotten from the police report. “According to this,” I said, “he has a brother living just a few miles west of here in Sheboygan Falls. I think we should start there.”

  “Don’t you think the police would have already checked that after the shooting?” Chuck said.

  “No doubt they did,” I said, “but Winston could have laid low while the investigation was going on and then returned when things cooled off. I’d like to see for myself.”

  Chuck and I left the vacant house, got back into the rented car and drove west, out of town. I left the way I’d come, via Memorial Drive to Highway 23 towards Sheboygan Falls. It was the second exit outside of Sheboygan. I followed the exit into town, over an abandoned railroad bridge and turned left. One block to the south was the address I was looking for. It was an apartment located above a drug store. I parked around the back at the alley entrance and we got out.

  I motioned for Chuck to position himself under the outside stairway while I climbed the stairs to the apartment door. I knocked on the door frame and waited. After a few moments the door opened a crack and a unshaven man peeked out at me.

  “Yeah?” he said. “What do you want?”

  I held up my badge and I.D., making sure my thumb obscured the fact that I was a private eye from another state. “I’m looking for Paul Winston,” I said, and slipped my I.D. case back into my pocket.

  Without hesitating, the man slammed the door shut and I could hear him yelling to someone unseen. “Beat it, Paul. It’s the cops,” the muffled voice said.

  I leaned over the railing and yelled down to Chuck. “Around the front,” I said.

  Chuck ran around the building and made it to the door that opened onto the sidewalk just as Paul Winston burst out of it. Chuck collided with Winston and they both hit the pavement in a pile. Winston shook himself off, sat up and looked into Chuck’s face. His eyes got wide when he recognized the man that he and his partner had left for dead nearly a month ago. He clenched his fist and pounded Chuck on the side of his head before scrambling to his feet and scurrying off down the street. He was around the corner and out of sight by the time I came around to the front of the building. I helped Chuck to his feet.

  “That was him,” Chuck said. “He sucker-punched me and took off. Let’s go.”

  I handed Chuck the keys to the rental car. “You bring the car. I’m going after him on foot.” I hurried to the end of the block and looked around the corner. Two block south I could see a man running along the sidewalk. The man turned, saw me and dashed across the street, now running west. Chuck pulled up next to me in the car and I got in.

  “Two blocks down,” I said. “He ran west.”

  Chuck floored the accelerator but by the time he’d made it to the corner and turned west, the fleeing man was out of sight. He probably cut through someone’s yard and could have gone in any direction by now.

  “Circle the blocks in this neighborhood,” I said. “He has to come out somewhere.”

  Chuck circled the first block and then widened his search pattern. After ten minutes of circling and finding nothing, we gave up. “Damn,” Chuck said. “We had him and he slipped away.”

  “He can’t get far,” I said. “He’s on the run with nothing. He may try to come back to his brother’s apartment. I think we need to stake it out.”

  “And while we’re doing that,” Chuck said, “he could be putting even more mileage between us.”

  “Where’s he going to go with what he has on him?” I said. He’s still on foot with only the clothes on his back. He may have some money on him, but he’s going to need a car if he expects to get out of the area.”

  “He could just steal one off the street,” Chuck said.

  “I don’t think he’ll do that,” I said. “That would involve the police to an even greater extent and I think he’d just as soon keep a low profile for now. Let’s just park somewhere near the brother’s place and wait. He’s bound to turn up sooner or later.”

  It was sooner. A little more than two hours later we spotted Winston sneaking between the buildings and up the back stairs to his brother’s apartment.

  “I have an idea,” I said. I got out of the car, leaned over the driver’s window and said, “Keep an eye on the place. I’m going into the drug store for a minute.”

  When I returned, I showed Chuck the piece of paper where I’d written the phone number of Winston’s brother, Dale. “Got this out of the phone book in the drug store,” I said. “Let’s see if this works. You go wait under the back staircase while I make the call. When he comes out, you just make sure he doesn’t get past you this time.”

  Chuck took up his position under the staircase and then signaled to me. I opened my cell phone and dialed Dale Winston’s number. He answered on the second ring.

  “Yeah?” Dale said.

  “Dale,” I said in an excited voice, “it’s Marty. The cops are on their way to your front door. You better tell Paul to beat it.” I quickly hung up, hoping that Dale knew somebody named Marty.

  It worked. Ten seconds after I’d hung up, Paul Winston burst out of the back door and took the stairs three at a time. When he got four steps from the bottom, Chuck reached around from under the stairs and grabbed Winston’s ankle. Winston crumbled like a rag doll and fell on his left hand. Bones snapped and his wrist twisted at an unusual angle. Winston sat up, cradling his broken wrist. Chuck emerged from under the stairs and grabbed Winston by his collar, hoisting him to his feet.

  I hurried to Chuck’s side and took Winston’s good arm, twisting it up behind his back. “Let’s go,” I told Winston. “We have a few questions for you,” I said.

  “Let him go,” the voice at the top of the stairs yelled. It was Dale Winston and he was pointing a revolver at us. “I’m not fooling. Let him go.”

  Still holding Winston’s arm I spun around, putting Winston between me and his trigger happy brother. Dale Winston fired twice. The first shot whizzed past my ear and made a clean hole in the trash can behind me. The second shot caught his brother in the side of his neck. Paul Winston crumpled at our feet while his brother stood staring in disbelief. It was enough of a pause to allow me to draw my .38 and aim it up the stairs.

  “Put the gun down,” I said.

  His mouth still hanging open, Dale Winston dropped his revolver. It thudded on the landing and bounced over the side, landing on the parking area below. Dale hurried down the stairs and knelt by his brother’s side. Paul Winston never got to say another word before his head flopped to one side. Blood ran from his mouth and dripped onto the ground. Dale looked up at me, his eyes welling up now.

  A police cruiser pulled into the alley behind the apartment building and two uniformed cops got out, their guns drawn on us. “Drop the gun,” one of them said to me.

  I dropped my .38 and put my hands in the air. “The one on the ground there is the shooter,” I said. His name is Dale Winston. He shot his brother, Paul.”

  “It was a mistake,” Dale screamed. “I wasn’t aiming at Paul.”

  The first cop, a
patrolman with a name tag that read Shelton, turned to me. “And who are you?” he said.

  “The name’s Cooper,” I said. “Elliott Cooper.” I pointed down to my inside pocket with a question on my face. “I have my I.D. here. Can I get it out?”

  “Carefully,” Shelton said. “Make sure your I.D.’s all that comes out.”

  I pulled out the leather case and flipped it open to my badge and I.D. Shelton took it from me and looked it over. “Los Angeles?” he said. “Aren’t you a long way from home?”

  “My client back in L.A. was from this area,” I explained. “He hired me to come back here to look into a matter for him. It led to Winston.”

  Shelton glanced at Chuck. “And who are you?” he said.

  Chuck broke out his wallet and handed Shelton his license. “St. Louis?” Shelton said. “This ain’t your neighborhood, either. What are you doing here?”

  “It was my associate in L.A. who hired Mr. Cooper to look in on me,” Chuck said. “I asked to tag along with him and we ended up here. That’s all there is to it.”

  “And who is Winston to you?” Shelton said.

  Chuck glanced at me and I nodded. He turned back to Shelton. “The one on the ground, Paul Winston,” Chuck said, “was one of two guys who shot me and left me for dead a month ago in Sheboygan. I just got out of the hospital and wanted to see if I could remember anything else about the incident. Mr. Cooper and I visited the house where I was shot but the police had already gone over the place. We just came here on a hunch that happened to pan out.”

  “Didn’t it occur to you to call in the police?” Shelton said.

  “We didn’t have anything yet,” I said. “We’d just caught Paul Winston and was about to bring him in to you when his brother there, shot down at us from up there.” I pointed to the landing above. “He hit his brother with the second shot and then you showed up. That’s all there is to it.”

  Shelton partner cuffed Dale Winston and placed him into the back of their squad car. Shelton turned back to us. “I’m afraid you’ll both have to come with me until we get this straightened out,” he said.

  Chuck and I rode back to the Sheboygan Falls Police Station with Shelton and gave our statements to the detectives on duty. An hour and a half later they released us and booked Dale Winston for attempted murder and manslaughter. We both agreed to appear for Dale Winston’s court date and left the police station, which was only four blocks from where I’d parked the rental car.

  I drove Chuck back to Mrs. Schneider’s boarding house. We parked in her driveway and climbed the porch of the old Victorian house. There were several whicker chairs on the porch that were perfect for watching the traffic go by. Chuck and I each sat in one, saying nothing for the next few minutes.

  “I’ve been thinking,” I said.

  “About what?” Chuck said.

  “That ten grand,” I said. “The more I thought about turning it over to the cops anonymously, the worse the idea sounded. Especially after what just happened. It wouldn’t take the cops much to connect us to both incidents and we’d just be buying ourselves a lot of trouble.”

  “So,” Chuck said, “you wanna split it?”

  I raised one eyebrow and looked at Chuck without turning my head.

  “I guess not,” Chuck said. “Then what do we do with it?”

  “You’ll see,” I said, rising from the chair. I stepped inside and was greeted by Mrs. Schneider on the way up to my room.

  “You have a lovely place here, Mrs. Schneider,” I said. “But I’m afraid we’ll be checking out tomorrow morning.”

  “Oh dear,” Mrs. Schneider said. “I hope your accommodations were acceptable, Mr. Cooper.”

  “It’s not that,” I said. “Everything here was perfect and I’m certain that the next time I’m in the area I’ll be sure to look you up. No, it’s just that our business here has concluded and we’ll be flying back to Los Angeles tomorrow.”

  “I guess you’ll have a refund coming on your deposit,” Flora Schneider said. “You only used one day.”

  I patted her on the shoulder. “You just keep the week’s deposit,” I said.

  Chuck and I climbed the stairs to the second floor. We both went to my room at the end of the hall and closed the door behind us. I retrieved the brown paper sack with the ten thousand dollars in it and emptied it out onto the bed. I counted it in front of Chuck, making sure he was aware of the total before I dropped it back into the bag with a little note. I stood up and motioned Chuck to follow as I left the room again.

  Once we were back in the car I drove west on Erie Avenue, the way I’d come when I got to town. I turned north for two block and west again on Michigan Avenue. A few blocks west we came to the Salvation Army Store and I pulled up to the curb.

  “What are we doing here?” Chuck said.

  “This is where the ten grand is going,” I said. “I thought about the Community Chest, United Way, Goodwill Industries and a few other charities but decided on the Salvation Army when I learned that they had the highest percentage of their proceeds going to the needy. Some of those others had administrative costs up into the ninety percent range.”

  “How are you going to give it to them without attracting any undue attention to ourselves?” Chuck said.

  “I’ve also got that figured out,” I said. “When we get inside, you go to the back of the store and pretend to fall down in the aisle. Ask to see the manager. That’ll get him out of his office long enough for me to lay the bag on his desk. When you see me come back where you are, just get up and say it’s not as bad as you first thought and get out of there. We’ll meet back at the car.”

  The whole operation came off without a hitch. I was in and out of the manager’s office in four seconds. I walked back to the part of the store where Chuck was making a commotion on the floor. When he looked up and saw me, he stopped fussing and got to his feet. He felt his back with both hands and announced that he was feeling much better now. He headed for the front door and out to the car, where he found me standing against it.

  “Ever think about becoming an actor?” I said. “After all, you’re going back with me to Hollywood. The studios are right in my back yard, so to speak.”

  “No,” Chuck said. “I’ve found that it’s better to stick with what you know.”

  I gave Chuck one of those looks out of the corner of my eye and he caught the implication. “That is,” Chuck said, “I’ve decided to expand my horizons and look for other forms of gainful employment.”

  “That’s what I thought you said,” I told him. I looked at my watch and then over at Chuck. “You hungry?”

  “I could use a bite,” Chuck said. “Where do you want to go?”

  “Well,” I said, “between you and Rob, I’ve been hearing so much about these bratwurst wieners that I have to admit I’m getting curious. Where can we find some?”

  “Everybody and his brother has a brat fry in this town,” Chuck said. “Hell, you can’t swing a dead cat without hitting some brat-eating Sheboyganite. Just ride around a little. You’ll probably come across one in just a few minutes.”

  I pulled the car around the corner and drove past the Salvation Army store once more. Several people were gathered around the door to the manager’s office. I could see him waving a fistful of bills in one hand and my note in the other. No doubt it would make the local paper tomorrow.

  Further down the street I turned north and followed it toward the edge of the city limits. There was a large supermarket on my right, set back a hundred yards. Out at the curb I spotted a kid wearing a two-sided sandwich board advertising The Boy Scouts brat fry. I could see smoke wafting through the air near the building and decided to pull in and have a look.

  Chuck and I got out of the car and walked over to where two guys were cooking some sort of fat wieners on a charcoal grill. Another guy was carrying a pot loaded with the cooked wieners over to the sales stand. There was a picnic table set out with napkins and condiments. Several people wer
e sitting there, obviously enjoying their meal. I looked down at one man who’d taken a bite out of his sandwich.

  “Looks good,” I said. “How is it?”

  The man held the bitten part of his sandwich so I could see it. “These guys use the best brats,” he said. “Mmmmmm.” He took another bite and I thought he was going to have an orgasm right there on the bench.

  I walked past him and up to the cashier. I hiked a thumb over my shoulder toward the guy on the bench. “I’ll have one of those,” I told the kid. I turned to Chuck. “What about you? What are you having?”

  “Make mine a hamburger,” Chuck said, looking at the price list on the back wall of the little sales hut. “In fact, make it a double.”

  “Anything to drink for you two gentlemen?” the kid behind the counter said.

  Chuck ordered a beer and I got myself a diet soda. I paid for the meal and we took it to the other end of the picnic bench, sitting across from each other. I was still on my first bit, enjoying the spicy flavor of the bratwurst when Chuck gestured over my shoulder with his beer can. “Look at that,” he said.

  I turned around to see nine or ten Boy Scouts in full uniform marching two by two up to the brat stand. The leader blew his whistle and the two lines of scouts stopped, and turned to face the people in the parking lot. The whistle sounded again and in unison, all ten of the scouts shouted, “Thank you for your support,” and turned again to face their leader. He blew the whistle again and the column of tiny soldiers marched away again. Before the troop of boys disappeared around the corner again, the crowd of people in the parking lot was applauding.

  “There’s something you don’t see every day,” I said, and finished the last bit of my double brat. I washed it down with the last of my soda, rose from the bench and threw my wrapper and empty can in the trash. Chuck did the same and we walked back to the car.